LG’s flexible and transparent OLED displays are the beginning of the e-paper revolution

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In 2012 it was a flexible e-ink display. In 2013 it was the slightly flexible OLED display used in the G Flex smartphone. And now in 2014 LG has produced a massive, 18-inch OLED display that can be rolled up into a tight cylinder with a radius of just 3 centimeters (1.2 inches). In addition, LG has also announced an 18-inch OLED display that is highly transparent. By 2017, LG thinks it can combine both of these prototypes to create a 60-inch, UHD (4K) display that is both flexible and transparent. Is the dream of a flexible, fold-up “e-paper” display finally upon us? Is that the death knell of the printed page that I can hear tolling in the distance?

The flexible 18-inch OLED display has a fairly low resolution of 1280×810. LG (understandly) isn’t saying much about the underlying technologies, but the main breakthrough seems to be the use of polyimide for the display’s backplane. Polyimides are strong, flexible plastics that are already used extensively in the electronics industry — for example in the ribbon that attaches a laptop’s display to the motherboard, which is put through huge stresses during thousands of open/close cycles. LG says it achieved “maximum curvature radius” because polyimide allowed for a much thinner (and thus more flexible) backplane than “conventional plastic.”

LG’s 18-inch transparent display has a transmittance of 30%, up from around 10% for previous transparent displays. As you can see in the image above, 30% looks pretty darn good. The high level of transmittance was achieved by reducing the “haze” caused by display’s underlying electronics to just 2%. You may not realize it, but every single pixel in your smartphone or laptop’s display is wired up, with a large number of switching transistors thrown in for good measure too. This circuitry is so small that you can’t actually see it (and materials like ITO that are used to fabricate the transistors are mostly transparent), but they block enough light to make a material hazy. LG says it also uses “transparent pixel design” technology, though it doesn’t give any more details. (OLED pixels, if built on a transparent substrate, are naturally fairly transparent anyway.)

While both of these prototypes are big steps forward, LG has an even more impressive timeline for the future: By 2017 it wants to create a 60-inch OLED display that is both flexible and transparent (and more flexible and transparent than the prototypes) — and up the resolution to UHD (4K, 3840×2160). According to the head of R&D at LG Display, these twin advances will allow LG to “[lead] the future display market.”

Back here in reality, of course, while the Galaxy S5’s OLED display is probably the best in the world, we’re still waiting for larger OLED screens and TVs that don’t require you to hock a major organ on the black market to fund your questionable obsession with bleeding edge tech. There’s no word on how much a roll-up 60-inch OLED display would cost, but I’m guessing you would probably have to choose between it and a new super yacht.

Pricing and availability aside, though, it’s clear that we’re moving fairly quickly towards a future that’s filled with curved and flexible devices. It’s important to remember that a flexible display is only part of the equation, though: You still need to power the device somehow. With breakthroughs in wireless power delivery, though, maybe the rigidity of lithium-ion batteries won’t actually be a roadblock. We’ll find out in the next couple of years.

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AdamRadzik22

To get an initial look/glance. I could easily walk by a booth or TV without caring or noticing anything. However, instinctively, if I see a female + skin tones in my peripheral vision, I’m going to look in that direction. It’s like a burst of sound or light….you can’t help but give it a moment’s notice. And then once you look that direction, their hope is that you might also check out the TV too. Oldest trick in the book, and as long as men have testosterone, it will work.

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Eh, no thanks. Samsung could have picked a more attractive girl and she’s not even that “curvy.”

Tikanderoga

Agree with you on that one. If you want to present something curvy, you better show some curves, not a stick figurine.

iKrontologist

They started the whole sexy girl with TV’s Commercial Presentation in their own Cheil Worldwide Marketing’s Campaign. Then LG and every other TV maker followed suit. Cheil Worldwide got hit by feminists for this last year and so Samsung stopped using the overtly sexy pretty and sexy girls when they presented their Curved screen at CES. Now you freaking fools are blowing chunks about them not being sexy and pretty enough and by the way….. there are now 7 Korean girls in the Top 100 most beautiful girls in the World list. All either Korean actresses or Kpop singers or models like 2NE1 and Girl’s Generation!

Blame the bad press Samsung, LG and Korea has received on American Feminist organizations!!! …..they made out like Samsung last year at Galaxy S4 launch glorified dumb and beautiful girls, when they didn’t!!!

Bruce Thomson

Depends what she’s watching.

Graham Templeton

I really don’t get transparent displays. Bendy, sure. But what exactly is the appeal of being able to see the wall behind your TV, or your knees behind the newspaper? I mean, it makes sense for over-eye displays, the sort of thing people thought Google Glass was going to be, but an 18-inch transparent e-reader? Seems like a weird goal.

Marcel Klein

I can easily imagine to finally get some great head-up displays for cars and everything else! They will probably also include some “active black” pixel to block the transparency for movies etc.

Glenn Scott

Cars. They can make overlays for car windows that can do numerous things. Imagine the HUD you can get with this laid on the inside of the car. Interior lighting. No more light bulbs, just slap up a display.

Dozerman

I’d love auto-dimming sunglasses that actually work or a windshield that blocks out the sun from my perspective.

dc

uh… they do….. transition lenses. I use them every day and they work great. Good shade outside, nice and clear inside.

Dozerman

How long have you had them, because mine burned in and progressively gstayeddarker and darker after a year or so.

dc

I’ve had em about two years now, still going strong.

Theophilus Stark

These displays do not block light. What you want is something more along the lines of an LCD windscreen. Coupled with eye- and bright-light-tracking cameras, it could darken the appropriate locations on the windscreen in real time. Reflected sunlight is also a problem, as are bright lights from oncoming cars and from glaring streetlights at night. Whether this technology would represent an unsafe distraction is another matter.

Dozerman

Oh really? I was under the impression they did….

Damon

or tracks where your eyes are and blacks out oncoming headlights.

Dozerman

Yeah, that would actually be necessary. Just guessing where someone’s head is would probably mean that you would need to block out a very large portion of the windshield.

Theophilus Stark

Heads-Up Displays (HUDs) are one obvious application. Besides the usual info such as speed, tach, time, etc., imagine one of these also coupled to a deep-IR camera for night driving. That deer about to leap into the road ahead but invisible to headlights? I would be willing to pay quite a lot for such capability.

I’d love to see this implemented in an eyefinity replacement-type setup with displays curved to agree with how you turn your head. Having three straight displays with bezels with my computer is annoying.

Matt Menezes

Yeah, I was thinking about this, but instead of 3 just 1 big, wide display wrapping around in front of you for gaming. I can’t stand the bevels in multi display setups when gaming – for office use, maybe, but for gaming, no way.

Dozerman

Agreed. That was actually what I meant to say, but got lost in the articulation again. Damn ADD…

GranFaloSentado

What I see is BIG HUD displays in all cars windscreens.

Welcome to enhanced reality. Welcome to Dennou Coil!!

dc

I question how many times it can be bent. Usually, at least to date, these come with a limit. So while it would be possible to flex it into a frame, folding it up every night isn’t an option, or hasn’t been.

massau

can someone answer me why we would need a transparent screen except for HUD applications?

Damon

actually, for me, HUD is exactly the reason this is exciting. Add in head and eye tracking and tomorrows cars could be pretty awesome, IR imagry laid over for seeing 4-legged suicidal creatures on a dark country road, and navigation that actually highlights the lane to be in without taking your eyes off the road. hell, as soon as this lands in a flying car, the future is here!

massau

yes but the monitor they show is just a rediculas aplication it would be worse than the monitors we use today.

The hud should also be focussed on the things in front of you otherwise it blurs out when you look at the road. I do not know if it is possible to do so with an OLED screen.

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This can be done with light field technics, like Lytro’s Illum camera. However this is currently a video/photo capturing method, not a display method. Illum exports to conventional jpegs whatever depth you choose to be focused, maybe that’s not possible in a display, at least in real time.

massau

if it is possible than you can read without glasses if you are far-sighted. i know it is possible with projectors thus google glass could do it.

adamrussell

Could have glasses that self correct as your eyes age.

massau

mmm if it can fast switch so you can focus near and far when needed than i’m sold (you can not see far with far-sighted glasses).

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It does not make sense in a conventional TV setting, unless it also has a totally opaque mode. I think this would be a nightmare in intense light environments, one step forward and five steps backwards.

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Matthew Kent

I have been seeing this stuff at tradeshows for at least the last 10 years, will someone bring this to market already?

Ivor O’Connor

I don’t like transparent displays but if this will eventually replace flat panels that would be great.

Realist

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Maventwo

But for e-papers and e-books it needs more power efficient displays than oleds can be
especially for static content like text and pictures.
And for that is other display tech’s better like Liquavista (as Amazon acquired 2013 from Samsung and Samsung acquired Liquavista 2011 from Liquavista NV, spin-off from Philips NV).
And american GammaDynamics which is similar to Liquavista.http://gammadynamics.net

mikey

I wonder how smart paper will impact education.

Mirimon

it seems the “smart” er our tech gets, if only in name, the dumber our general population ends up being.

Bliss Seeker

I agree

James Lowman

(current uni student) – i bought an iPad so i wouldn’t have to haul textbooks everywhere… took me two years to figure out that having my own paper text was really more worth it. i can make stupid notes and doodles in the corners – and my brain seems to visually remember positions of important equations by how far in the text, and what side of the page it was on…

i could see a future for smart paper – but i believe there is a textile part of human memory that is compromised by it…

RH

I’ve been in the photocopier business since 1981, and this is the 3rd time I’ve heard about the “death” of paper copies. As long as there is a government & lawyers, there will be a need for paper copies. In the mid 80’s, the computer was suppose to kill off copying, but it made it worse, because paper pushers got more detailed information. Then, the paperwork reduction act came along, and it was suppose to “dramatically” reduce the need for paper. As with anything the government comes along with, it made it worse. The HIPPA law made it even worse in the early 2000’s. Heck, I can’t even get businesses to use scan to email, and give up S-L-O-W fax machines! “we’ve always had a fax machine”. Perhaps in 20-30 years paper will start to go away, but it seems like every time technology changes and someone announces the death of paper, it only gets worse.

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All of the other aspects aside here, think about how light that would be? Man, even a flat screen 60″ TV is just on the side of barely able to move with only 1 person. But a 60″ roll-up screen like that probably would weigh like, 30-40 pounds tops?

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Colin Phillips

Major applications for this are: next generation TVs (these will be dirt cheap to mass produce, just as how LCDs TVs are far cheaper to mass produce than the old heavy CRTs), car windscreens, all the windows of houses, as smart wallpaper, glasses, contact lenses, clothing, tattoos, Cinema displays, billboards…

Guest

COOL. :D

Bob Eckert

Ah, the most important question for something that could become ubiquitous, is it eco-friendly in some way….bio-degradable? can be recycled somehow without using more energy than was used to create it? Otherwise it will be become a plastic water bottle plague.

Volcan

That’s the most stupid application for flexible display,
who need to roll up 60″ tv screen ? once it hanged on the wall it stays there for good.
but lets says that someone realy need this feature, than he need some rigid frame to hold it together which contradict the all idea.
it could be nice feature for tablets, but only if the problem of keeping it flat by some sort of foldable rigid frame will be solved.

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